House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. administers the House oath of office to Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., during a mock swearing in ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017, as the 115th Congress began.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, today introduced legislation seeking to establish firmer controls on the use of animals in chemical, drug and food safety tests, with the goal of cutting taxpayer expenses and saving critters’ lives.

Calvert’s H.R. 816, the Federal Accountability in Chemical Testing — FACT — Act, would strengthen standards in a 2000 law authored by the congressman mandating that the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food & Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies issue biennial reports detailing how animals are used in tests.

The FACT Act would go a step farther, requiring that all reports contain specific information on the specific number of animals used and why.

“For two decades, I have played a key role in the efforts to replace wasteful government animal tests with modern alternative tests that save significant time, taxpayers’ money and animals’ lives,” Calvert said. “The FACT Act will ensure that Congress has the information necessary to determine if federal agencies are meeting their mandates to replace expensive and unnecessary animal testing whenever possible, because evidence suggests they are not.”

The congressman pointed out that some animal tests can run as high as $4 million and span more than five years.

Calvert cited a study last year by the nonprofit White Coat Waste Project to emphasize the need for improved techniques. According to the Washington, D.C.-based group’s findings, tests involving cosmetics, foods, natural supplements, tobacco products and industrial chemicals have been conducted using hundreds of dogs, mice, monkeys, rabbits and rats.

The study estimated that $12 billion a year is expended by the federal government on “wasteful, painful and ineffective animal experiments.”